Resource VGC 2017 Viability Rankings (Currently Outdated)

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Alola-Wak: A- ->A
I personally don't think that Wak got too weakened by the AFK's rise. It's virtually a slower Arcanine that's about as tanky, and as long as there's no Knock Off user, it can still maintain a good spot.
I personally disagree, I think that Marowak-A is not as good as it could be, Pokebank didn't help, as it gave Knock Off to Mandibuzz, and Arcanine is a much better Pokémon, which limits Marowak-A's usage and usefulness, it also is easily beat by Garchomp, who is still common, I think it belongs in A-, not A.
 

Jibaku

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Quick changes:

Gyarados: B+ -> A-

Got Bounce, got Supersonic Skystrike, and can now bop its previous checks. Not moving higher for the time being because Gyara does require some support setting up and doesn't exactly destroy worlds, but it's respectable.

Marowak: A- -> B+

Still a good mon, but also overall pretty situational in various matchups. Its recent usage drops reflect this quite well.

Gigalith: A- -> B+

Good mon for making hard TR sad but it kinda doesn't do enough on its own.

Bank stuff is hard to tier because most of them aren't making significant enough impact I think, but I'm still looking into this :D.
 
Obviously the bottom tier mons are not priority, but i feel like few of these has just good enough niche to be D or maybe low-C:

- Parasect
- Butterfree
- Exeggutor-A
- Clefable
- Dragonite (?)
- Slowbro/Slowking

As for mons itself:

- Parasect has super shit stats and typing, but it still holds a niche with rage powder + spore (and wide guard). Its closest thing you can get with Amoonguss. Also 4x resist to ground is great which allows it to redirect Tectonic Rage from Chomp, which alone is quite hilarous.

- Butterfree has equally shitty stats, but it does get fast sleep option and rage powder. Its pretty much only "offensive" sleep spreader in the meta.

- Exeggutor-A has shitton of weakness but it has cool trick as Z-Trick Room + Sleep Powder / Hypnosis. It would have potential with correct support. I think that Harvest sets could work, too.

- Clefable is just shadow of former itself (and i dont mean that Clefable is Gengar now :P ) but its still only redirector along with its pre-evo that is bulky and doesnt have shitton of weakness like Parasect. It doesnt have icy wind, it doesnt have good offensive pressure, minimize is just unreliable, but despite that the fact its just...bulky, and...has follow me gives it a niche. Ive seen few Clefables in high rankings that havent been a part of gimmicks. Clefairy can stay in Z-Rank though because it has absolutely no offensive pressure.

- Dragonite as physical attacker is generally outclassed by Garchomp and to some extend, Arcanine, while special set is somewhat outclassed by Salamence, Goodra and even Kommo-o. Dnite however has few tricks which imo should be just enough to make it bottom of D rank. It is quite bulky thanks to Multiscale, making it hard to OHKO from full HP. It has great Atk stat + Espeed, so a WP set would work...okay, i guess. On Special side, Dnite carries some coverage moves like Thunder, Hurricane and Ice Beam, which most Dragons dont get access to. I dont think this is very "viable" mon but it has enough tools to take it for consideration for D-rank.

- Slowbro/Slowking can fit akward role of bulky water - TR setter at same time. They also get (weirdly enough) Flamethrower, which means that they threaten 2 mons out of 3 of AFK core (while can tank multiple hits from the 3rd one). They also get Oblivious so they cant be taunted. I feel like they should be ranked together because they are otherwise identical but just has differences on defenses: Slowbro can tank Leaf Blade from kartana with enough investment while Slowking can tank Tbolt from Koko outside of Electric Terrain better than Bro does. I think that Bro is slightly better than King, but i think that they could be ranked at same ranking.

Not important nominations or anything but if one starts to put D-rank mons, i think these are few ones to consider.
 

Pocket

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Slowbro is definitely noteworthy as a TR setter. Pair it with Marowak-A to protect it from Electric-types. With Scald, Ice Beam, and Flamethrower it hits a lot of the metagame super-effectively, namely Arcanine, Gigalith, Marowak-A, Krookodile, Garchomp, Salamence, and Kartana. It has access to nifty support options, too, particularly Heal Pulse & Disable.
 
Quite surprised that of all the weather sweeper, neither of the Sand Rush mons, Stoutland and Lycanrock-midday, are mentioned at all. Are they just not worth being on the viability tier or has no one brought them up yet?
 
Quite surprised that of all the weather sweeper, neither of the Sand Rush mons, Stoutland and Lycanrock-midday, are mentioned at all. Are they just not worth being on the viability tier or has no one brought them up yet?
The reason that the Sand Rush crew aren't big on the list is that neither of them can bring heavy offense firepower to a match where they are commonly weakened by Intimidate, as well as a lack of synergy with their sand setter, Gigalith. In the most analogous weather mode, Hail, at least Ninetales still manages to offer Blizzards that cannot be weakened by Intimidate, though Sandslash does rather underwhelming damage-- really, you just have to ask if it's worth running Stoutland or Lycanrock in the sand over Ninetales and Sandslash in the hail, for similar fast physical attacking weather modes.
 

Acast

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Probably doesn't matter, but shouldn't Torkoal and Lilligant be on the same tier?
Torkoal is a little higher because it doesn't need to be used with Lilligant to be good. It's the slowest Mon in the metagame so it can be a valuable member of a TR team or just a good way to check rain teams. Lilligant is pretty much only good when it has Torkoal as a partner.

Basically, Lilligant needs Torkoal, but Torkoal doesn't need Lilligant.
 
On ps and trainer tower, I have heard of a few people using drifblim as a tailwind setter. After unburden, it out speeds everything in the meta, and becomes extremely bulky through misty or psychic seed. It's also immune to fake out. C+, or hell even B- seems to be a good fit for this mon.
 

Celestavian

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Snorlax seems like it could move up to A now. It's starting to become a lot more common, doing well at events, and it's just a pretty powerful Pokemon. Belly Drum and Curse are both really good sets, and it has the bulk and lack of weaknesses to back those sets up. With so many teams running TR either in the form of hard TR or just a regular team with a TR setter, Snorlax can fit on a wide array of teams and act as a solid glue that poses a huge threat. People are really starting to realize Snorlax's power and it seems like a good fit with the other A mons.

Milotic should move down to the B tier, as it really underperforms in respect to what it looks like it can do on paper. Despite the dominance of Arcanine, Milotic is just almost always outclassed by Fini, who has higher defenses and a comparable Special Attack. I've used it on a few different teams and it just seems to die too much to be of any use, especially with Kartana and Koko being so popular. Even against Arcanine, a Pokemon that its usage thrives upon, it can still fail if Arcanine is running Wild Charge, and it seems to me like most Arcanine have running the physical attacker set recently. Comparing it to the other Pokemon in B+, they all have an easier time fulfilling their purpose and fit on more teams than Milotic does, and it seems more at home with the other Pokemon in B in my opinion.

Other Pokemon that I think could move but don't feel like writing up stuff on:

Mimikyu: B- -> B
Goodra: B+ -> B
Whimsicott: B- -> B
 

Jibaku

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Tentative changelist for next update:

Gyarados: A- -> B+. Bounce is still banned in events so im putting this back to its previous rank
Mimikyu: B- -> B.
Krookodile: A- -> B+
Braviary: B- -> B
Tapu Bulu: B+ -> B
Snorlax: A- -> A
Goodra: B+ -> B

Salazzle: UR -> B-
Drifblim: UR -> B
 
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Pyritie

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Gigalith: B+ -> A- or even A. This thing has been doing fantastically at events and is surprisingly versatile.
Fini: A+ -> A. Countered hard by a lot of the meta at the moment.
Muk: A -> A-. Lol who still uses this
Magnezone: B- -> B or B+. Great defensive typing when you get rid of the one thing on your opponent's team that has a ground move. Has also been doing fairly well at events, including taking both 1st and 2nd at sheffield and 1st at aus internats.
Mimikyu: B- -> B+ or even A-. What the hell is this doing all the way down there?
 
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Gigalith: B+ -> A- or even A. This thing has been doing fantastically at events and is surprisingly versatile.
Fini: A+ -> A. Countered hard by a lot of the meta at the moment.
Muk: A -> A-. Lol who still uses this
Magnezone: B- -> B or B+. Great defensive typing when you get rid of the one thing on your opponent's team that has a ground move. Has also been doing fairly well at events, including taking both 1st and 2nd at sheffield.
Mimikyu: B- -> B+ or even A-. What the hell is this doing all the way down there?
I totally agree on everything except Muk, I think it still can shine as long as it has a teammate that can take down Garchomp, which almost every team has nowadays anyway.
 
Muk-A really shouldn't go anywhere. It's the best user of Knock Off, which is the best answer to Snorlax besides All-out Pummeling and is a good check to all of the Tapus, one of which is seen on pretty much every team. Garchomp is the only big threat to it, so if you pair it with something that can take it out, you'll at least Knock Off a few key items before going down.
 
Muk-A really shouldn't go anywhere. It's the best user of Knock Off, which is the best answer to Snorlax besides All-out Pummeling and is a good check to all of the Tapus, one of which is seen on pretty much every team. Garchomp is the only big threat to it, so if you pair it with something that can take it out, you'll at least Knock Off a few key items before going down.
Not to mention it being a great Porygon2 counter.
 

Celestavian

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I think that Celesteela should also move down to A. After having used it for about a month, it's pretty hard to use right now. You still need to have multiple answers to it on your team to not get swept by it, but those answers, such as Arcanine and Tapu Koko, are on most teams anyway. It struggles with Drifblim + Lele as well since it is so easily burned or removed from the field by Buzzwole's Z-Superpower. It also struggles with hard TR despite being fairly slow, since hard TR has numerous different ways, such as Waterium Z Araquanid or Magnezone, to deal with it. It's not a terrible Pokemon by any means, but it is just so well prepared for that it does not have the impact that it used to.
 

Pyritie

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Not to mention it being a great Porygon2 counter.
I disagree with this point. Knocking off p2's eviolite is great and all, but you still aren't hitting it that hard (pjab only does about a third after knock off), letting it spam recover and wear muk down. A +1 return from p2 even does about 45% to muk!

Muk is pretty ok against it though. Taunt is great for stopping it from setting up trick room or recovering, and curse lets muk make up for its otherwise disappointing damage output against it.
 
I disagree with this point. Knocking off p2's eviolite is great and all, but you still aren't hitting it that hard (pjab only does about a third after knock off), letting it spam recover and wear muk down. A +1 return from p2 even does about 45% to muk!

Muk is pretty ok against it though. Taunt is great for stopping it from setting up trick room or recovering, and curse lets muk make up for its otherwise disappointing damage output against it.
Fair enough, great might have been too strong a word.
 

TPO3

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I disagree with this point. Knocking off p2's eviolite is great and all, but you still aren't hitting it that hard (pjab only does about a third after knock off), letting it spam recover and wear muk down. A +1 return from p2 even does about 45% to muk!

Muk is pretty ok against it though. Taunt is great for stopping it from setting up trick room or recovering, and curse lets muk make up for its otherwise disappointing damage output against it.
I mean, you're not "wrong." Muk by itself isn't the "counter." One-on-one it doesn't beat p2, sure. But any teammate muk has is going to deal significantly more damage with Eviolite gone. (I.e. Timid LO Koko 2HKOing with Tbolt, and Jolly Garchomp Tec Rage doing upwards of 80%) So while Muk isn't "countering" it one-on-one, it's still the main reason that p2 can be taken down later in the match. I honestly think A is still fine for it considering it's one of the only mons (are there any other mons?) that can check or counter all of the tapus and p2 by itself.
 
Nominating Drifblim for A! Why? Drifblim+Lele won ONOG Invitational, Oceania Internationals and Oregon Regionals.
Drifblim is a Pokémon whose usage has risen dramatically in the last two months, much of it thanks to Shoma and his ONOG Invitational winning team. Drifblim’s main selling points are its access to Tailwind and the Unburden ability, which means that after its item is consumed (usually Psychic Seed or Misty Seed) its Speed stat doubles. Because of this, it’s almost impossible to prevent Tailwind from being set up. Speed control is very important in pretty much any format so being able to set it up so reliably is a huge boon for the balloon. After Tailwind is set up, Drifblim will usually use Will-o-Wisp or Disable to disrupt the opponent, or chip away their health with Shadow Ball. Some Drifblim choose to run Haze to prevent setup strategies, or Rain Dance/Sunny Day in order to beat opposing weather teams, or simply to boost an ally’s Fire-type or Water-type attack. Destiny Bond has also seen usage in the final moveslot on Aaron Zheng’s Oregon Regionals winning team.

When used in conjunction with Tapu Fini, Misty Terrain can allow Drifblim to use Swagger on its allies to boost their Attack stats without inflicting the Confusion status. This is usually used in conjunction with the likes of Garchomp, Arcanine, or Kartana.

For damage dealing moves, Drifblim usually only has Shadow Ball, however, its low offensive stats can sometimes result in Drifblim becoming dead weight on the field after Tailwind has been set up. Due to Unburden no longer being active if Drifblim is switched out, momentum management can become a huge factor, and knowing when to keep Drifblim in and when to switch it out can become extremely important.
 
Nominating Drifblim for A! Why? Drifblim+Lele won ONOG Invitational, Oceania Internationals and Oregon Regionals.
Drifblim is a Pokémon whose usage has risen dramatically in the last two months, much of it thanks to Shoma and his ONOG Invitational winning team. Drifblim’s main selling points are its access to Tailwind and the Unburden ability, which means that after its item is consumed (usually Psychic Seed or Misty Seed) its Speed stat doubles. Because of this, it’s almost impossible to prevent Tailwind from being set up. Speed control is very important in pretty much any format so being able to set it up so reliably is a huge boon for the balloon. After Tailwind is set up, Drifblim will usually use Will-o-Wisp or Disable to disrupt the opponent, or chip away their health with Shadow Ball. Some Drifblim choose to run Haze to prevent setup strategies, or Rain Dance/Sunny Day in order to beat opposing weather teams, or simply to boost an ally’s Fire-type or Water-type attack. Destiny Bond has also seen usage in the final moveslot on Aaron Zheng’s Oregon Regionals winning team.

When used in conjunction with Tapu Fini, Misty Terrain can allow Drifblim to use Swagger on its allies to boost their Attack stats without inflicting the Confusion status. This is usually used in conjunction with the likes of Garchomp, Arcanine, or Kartana.

For damage dealing moves, Drifblim usually only has Shadow Ball, however, its low offensive stats can sometimes result in Drifblim becoming dead weight on the field after Tailwind has been set up. Due to Unburden no longer being active if Drifblim is switched out, momentum management can become a huge factor, and knowing when to keep Drifblim in and when to switch it out can become extremely important.
Yes, Drifblim was on 3 winning teams, but it doesn't really fit the description of A tier

"Reserved for Pokemon that are outstanding in the VGC metagame and can handle various field positions effectively or support multiple win conditions. These Pokemon require less support than other Pokemon to be used effectively and have few flaws that can be overlooked when compared to their outstanding traits."

That doesn't sound like Drifblim. It needs support from a Terrain and can't really switch out.

"Reserved for Pokemon who are great in the VGC metagame. These Pokemon have more notable flaws than of those above it that affects how they function in the tier. Their positive traits still outshine their negatives, but they require a bit more team support to bring out their full potential. Their niches are often slightly smaller than those that are in A and S rank, which leads them to face some competition for a teamslot."

That sounds exactly like Drifblim. It needs support from a Tapu to unleash it's full power but when it has that support, it can be really good. It seems like the perfect B to B+ Pokemon to me, especially since it faces direct competition from Mandibuzz.
 
Put Gigalith back in A where he belongs. Assessing recent results (such as on the Nails team, for example) and usage statistics, it's pretty much impossible to deny that he's becoming one of the most dominating metagame forces now, with impressive defenses, damage output, and matchups, being arguably the best non-setup pokemon on Trick Room offense. As a result, I'd demote Araquanid down to B+, now getting squashed by Gigalith in TR most of the time.
 
I'm sorry if this is a basic comment, but I don't see trevanant on that list. It still deserves decent rank because of harvest sitrus berry which happens every turn in sun so it works decently with torkoal. Trevanant can also run protect and trickroom with imprison.
 

Acast

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I'm sorry if this is a basic comment, but I don't see trevanant on that list. It still deserves decent rank because of harvest sitrus berry which happens every turn in sun so it works decently with torkoal. Trevanant can also run protect and trickroom with imprison.
I haven't played VGC in months but I'm pretty sure A-Exeggutor outclasses Trevenant in most of its roles, which is probably why Trev isn't ranked.
 
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